6 Benefits of Social Media Detox

If there’s one thing that most of us can’t live without, it’s social media. According to Statista, there were 2.46 billion of social media users around the world in 2017. No doubt the numbers are humongous and they will keep growing as the year goes by.

Although social media has its own benefits, it can cause more harm than good. This is especially true if you are addicted to social media. Take Facebook, for example. From the notifications to the endless news feeds on your Facebook wall, you can literally spend hours scrolling and clicking. Such habit is unhealthy, as it may affect a lot of things from work to personal life such as paying less attention to someone you love. So, what can you do about it? The solution is to detox by refraining from using social media once in a while. Even if your job requires you to be online, you can still detox during the weekend or when you are on a holiday. Keep reading as we list down 6 benefits of social media detox.

1) You Will Rediscover Real Interaction

Sure, social media is meant for you to get socialised with people you know. But nothing beats the good old-fashioned way of face-to-face interaction. You are likely to build real, organic and better relationship with people than you do solely on social media.

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2) More Free Time To Do Other Things

Social media can make you unproductive because you spend a majority of your time looking at your smartphone. By opting for a social media detox, you will gain plenty of free time to accomplish things that you’ve been missing out all this while! It could be anything from reading books to jogging in the park.

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3) Able To Sleep Better

Are you suffering from insomnia or other problems that made you deprived of a good night’s sleep? We hate to break this to you but social media happens to be one of the main culprits. When you spend time scrolling through your Facebook feed and whatnot while you are lying in the bed, the blue light that emits from your smartphone screen can interrupt your natural sleep cycle. Think of the blue light like a morning sun. It confuses your brain to stop producing melatonin into thinking “it’s time to wake up” rather than “it’s time to sleep”. Even if you use the blue light filter app on your screen, it makes little difference since you may unwittingly be spending hours scrolling, browsing and clicking.

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4) You Will Stop Comparing With Others

Comparison happens when you are hooked on social media like Facebook and Instagram. For instance, you see one of your friends having the time of his/her life travelling around the world. You feel envy about your friend having such a good life. Such issue can lower your self-esteem and it affects your mental health into succumbing more negative thoughts in a long run.

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5) It Helps To Overcome Your Dreaded FOMO

FOMO is an acronym of “fear of missing out”, which particularly applies well to those who are addicted to social media. For instance, you are unable to resist for not clicking that Facebook or WhatsApp notification on your smartphone. After all, you don’t want to miss every single thing in your life. But in reality, some of them may not be important at all. This could potentially lead to anxiety. The least you can do here is turning off these notifications.

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6) It Makes You Stop Thinking About The Past

The past can be ugly on social media if you happen to suffer sad moments like breakup and divorce. It’s even more painful if you see your ex on social media starts dating your best friend. This is just one of the examples. By taking a break from social media through detox, it may help you to move on with your life.

Casey is a freelance writer and a movie enthusiast, where some of his close friends dubbed him as "walking encyclopedia of movies". He also frequently blog movie reviews under "Casey's Movie Mania" (www.caseymoviemania.com)